Design Thinking: how to change your perspective on problems

In this post we introduce one of the most well-known design approaches in recent memory: Design Thinking. We’ll cover the main aspects of Design Thinking, how it orients towards problem solving, and how Entando makes use of it.

Design thinking is a form of analysis that identifies and investigates the known and unknown aspects of an issue to solve complex problems that occur. This design methodology is useful in business environments, where the intent is to implement innovation in stable contexts. Even more, businesses should consider it when the goal is to create something that did not exist before, meaning, it likely will be addressed to a potential customer target that is not yet fully known. It therefore becomes necessary to know the potential users in-depth, using an ethnographic approach, collecting a set of data that makes it possible to interpret their behaviors, their attitudes, and their opinions.

To be successful, Design Thinking is a must observe the behavior of consumers outside their own office, understanding the real needs of real users, to reach a solution that helps people achieve their objectives.

It is a common misconception that Design Thinking has only recently evolved. Design Thinking as a practice has been around for centuries: monuments, bridges, cars, and subway systems are all the products of a design processes. Throughout history, good designers have applied a creative process focused on people to build meaningful and effective solutions. More recently, design has been applied to review the aesthetics of a product. Unfortunately, this kind of design application has led many companies to create solutions that do not meet the real needs of their customers. Jakob Nielsen states that "a wonderful interface, which solves the wrong problem, will fail."

Short History

[The term] Design Thinking appears for the first time in 1965 in the book "Systematic Method for Designers," by L. Bruce Archer. In 1987, P .Rowe in his book Design Thinking tells how the methods and approaches used by architects and urban planners defined a significant initial use of the term. In 1992, R. Buchanan published the article "Wicked Problems in Design Thinking" which deals with Design Thinking as a method for solving human problems.

One of the first official concepts of the Design Thinking process born by H. Simon, the Nobel Prize winner in "The Sciences of the Artificial." This model has influenced and shaped some of the most popular Design Thinking models today. Simon describes Design Thinking as a model with seven main phases. This model is the one we use at Entando, both for the general improvement activities of our products and for when we work with our partners to implement their ideas for our product.

The seven stages of Design Thinking are:

Interviews

Creation of user profiles

Analysis of other existing solutions

Prototyping

Mind mapping

Problem map design

Situational analysis

Five other phases

In addition, the model presented by the Hassi-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford contemplates five other phases:

Empathy
The first step in the Design Thinking process is to empathically understand the problem you are trying to solve. Empathy can be considered the crucial element of the User Centered Design process and allowing design thinkers to put their own assumptions aside, in order to obtain information about the users and their needs.

Definition
During the Definition phase, the information gathered during the first phase is aggregated. The observations are analyzed and summarized to define the main problems actually identified. Problems must always be defined in terms of user needs, and not in terms of business needs. We begin to ask questions about the possible solution of these problems.

Ideation
At this point, designers are ready to start generating ideas. The problem is defined identifying new solutions thinking out of the box. There are hundreds of ideation techniques, one of these is Brainstorming. Brainstorming sessions are typically used to stimulate free thinking and to expand the field of the problem.

Prototyping
At this stage, a series of inexpensive and small-scale product versions are produced. Prototypes can be shared and tested within the team itself or on a small group of people outside the design team. This is an experimental phase and the goal is to identify the best possible solution for each of the problems identified during the first three phases. Solutions are implemented through prototypes and, one by one, reviewed, improved and re-examined or rejected. At the end of this phase, the design team will have a better idea of product limitations and a realistic idea of how real users would think and feel when they interact with the final product.

Test
The final product version is evaluated. In an iterative process, the results generated during the test phase are often used to redefine one or more problems. Even during this phase, changes and improvements take place.

It is important point out that the five steps are not always sequential: they do not have to follow any specific order and can often occur in parallel and be repeated iteratively. For the Entando experience we can say that often following different paths helps to focus our strengths and weaknesses so that we can reach our goal faster.

All phases should be included as modalities that contribute to improving the process of the project, rather than sequential steps. Moreover, the five steps of Design Thinking are the same stages of “problem solving.”

In addition, each project will involve specific activities of the product being developed, but the central idea of each phase remains the same. In order to obtain the purest and most informative insights, these phases could be switched, conducted simultaneously and repeated several times in order to expand the field of the best possible solutions. This is why Design Thinking may seem confusing or ambiguous when compared to the more analytical scientific and engineering methods.

As the Forrester Report’s "Integrated Design Thinking Into Agile Development" shares, disconnected design and development cycles lead to delays, increased costs, and lost revenue. For this reason it is important follow and manage the Design Thinking methodology in project processes. Including this methodology improves not only designers and end-users, but also developers and business managers. This is possible because Design Thinking is compatible with Agile development practices. The general aim is to integrate design, reorganize product teams, and build a new set of skills.

In this way it is possible to have an iterative and participatory approach throughout the production chain. This is often the approach we prefer to follow in Entando, depending on the type of project, meaning that everyone associated with the product or service needs to be directly involved in every stage of the design process. This is what we call Co-Design, a form of Design Thinking that produces more innovative solutions compared to the more traditional perspectives of single and individual (non-group) consultation of the stakeholders. Some of the projects that have followed this approach are present in our Case Studies section.

To conclude

we can summarize Design Thinking as an approach to Divergent thought, (through which many possible solutions to the same problem are explored), and to Convergent thought (a way to narrow the field to the final solution with the ability to find the best solution to the problem).